I'd like to weigh into the musical piracy debate which,IMO,should probably be moved to the "what's gets on my tits" thread lol!

DISCLAIMER: in no way do I condone the public sharing of copywrited material! This is simply my opinion and will undoubtedly not be shared by everyone..

Ok, I can understand the outrage or consternation over publicly sharing of copywrited on torrent sites etc for anyone and everyone to download or worse selling of it on sites such as eBay. Iam less concerned by private sharing of music and such between friends where interest in artists has been piqued enough to warrant listening to an artist. One might say borrow the cd from a library but in instances of rarer music this is not always possible.

What concerns me even less is in the case of artists like the band this site is all about where (I would say the blame almost entirely lies with the management group) through nothing more than money grabbing exercises, releases and re releases the same music to the fans over and over. Case in point, I bought all the albums on vinyl, then cd was released, "great" I thought "This is the way of the future" and promptly sold all the vinyl(now regretted) and bought all the CDs. 1994 rolls around and now the CDs have been "remastered" bought them all again. Now it's 2007,box sets and remastered again and DVD extras! Plus a small tour where the concerts are released on cd(even though the setlist is basically the same every night) But wait,there's more! Now the SAME albums are being released yet again on Bluray! On another level PG finally releases his Athens concert on DVD after all these years with the promise it won't be released on Bluray so I go out and buy it and now, guess what? It's released on Bluray as well! Now you may say no one is forcing you to buy them-correct! But meanwhile back in 2007 (when the remastered remaster came out) we were promised that the old board tapes that were being digitised would be released to the fans. Seven years later still nothing.

Meanwhile, Bruce Springsteen, who's concert setlist is completely different each night, releases each of his concerts in FLAC for $17.00 or even less for mp3.

I don't condone piracy but neither do I condone the continual gouging of fans of their hard earned cash for basically the same music that's has been around for over thirty years!

So, Big Big Train would have been a better example than Electric Light Orchestra? Seriously NSOV, I don't want to fall out over this. I know that you buy a lot of CDs and pay for a lot of downloads from iTunes. Perhaps, however, if you quote a post of mine - even one in TFOLR - you could be careful in your choice of words when it comes to talking about album "ownership". I know you weren't boasting when you said "600+" but knowing as I do how many of those are illegal rips is something I am very sensitive about. Peace?

Justin Bieber's hit song Baby has just become the second video on YouTube to reach a billion views. But who cares about that? My congratulations go to Japanese supercentenarian Misao Okawa, who has become the tenth person in history to reach the mighty age of 116. Happy birthday, Misao.

What concerns me even less is in the case of artists like the band this site is all about where (I would say the blame almost entirely lies with the management group) through nothing more than money grabbing exercises, releases and re releases the same music to the fans over and over. Case in point, I bought all the albums on vinyl, then cd was released, "great" I thought "This is the way of the future" and promptly sold all the vinyl(now regretted) and bought all the CDs. 1994 rolls around and now the CDs have been "remastered" bought them all again. Now it's 2007,box sets and remastered again and DVD extras! Plus a small tour where the concerts are released on cd(even though the setlist is basically the same every night) But wait,there's more! Now the SAME albums are being released yet again on Bluray!

Well, I disagree with a lot of what you are saying here, for a number of reasons.

First off, a band/artist is thoroughly entitled to handle their own material in any way they wish, whether to distribute it or not, in whatever format they decide, and as often as they like, just as you are entitled to choose whether to purchase it or not. In fact, neither you nor anyone else is compelled to buy whatever is released for sale, and to simply find fault with a band/artist in their efforts to earn a living seems misplaced.

Furthermore, in this particular case, compared to many other bands, Genesis hasn't overstepped their right to resell their material by any reasonable margin. I'd say they've been fairly conservative.

Early CD releases for many artists were haphazard, with varying quality and availability, largely the result of trying to fulfill a fast growing demand and questionable production. Clamoring for remasters was a routine chant in the fandom and many artists complied with those wishes. The 1994 DE remasters were simply the band standardizing their catalogue just as many others were doing at the time. It was 13 years later when they started releasing the box sets, but those weren't simple re-releases of the old remasters, they were different mixes, in HD and 5.1 audio, along with bonus material, and many fans were quite happy that these releases were being offered. Now, whether or not one thinks that the results were successful is another matter. But you can't blame them for a rehash of something that was already available.

And you can't blame them for releasing material as formats change anymore than you can be blamed for getting rid of your LPs, because no one has the ability to foresee such changes in the industry, and all anyone can do is respond to the circumstances and the demands of the present.

The blu-ray releases are an initiative of Universal, which is being done for various other artists as well, and there is no indication that the whole catalogue is be re-released in this way.

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On another level PG finally releases his Athens concert on DVD after all these years with the promise it won't be released on Bluray so I go out and buy it and now, guess what? It's released on Bluray as well! Now you may say no one is forcing you to buy them-correct! But meanwhile back in 2007 (when the remastered remaster came out) we were promised that the old board tapes that were being digitised would be released to the fans. Seven years later still nothing.

Where did this promise of no blu-ray come from? PG himself? His management? The production and distribution company?When was this promise made?When the So box set was being released and I found out that Live In Athens was only DVD I simply waited for the blu-ray assuming that it would eventually be released because Secret World had already been out in that format. But it's not the end of the world when you consider that all physical formats are eventually going to die a slow death.

The board tapes were never a definite promise. There was certainly talk of the possibility of their release, but it never really got beyond that stage.

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Meanwhile, Bruce Springsteen, who's concert setlist is completely different each night, releases each of his concerts in FLAC for $17.00 or even less for mp3.

I don't condone piracy but neither do I condone the continual gouging of fans of their hard earned cash for basically the same music that's has been around for over thirty years!

The comparison with Springsteen is a bit silly.

For one thing, Springsteen is a current working and touring artist who finally started doing this, and his approach to performing live is vastly different. And the fact is, downloads are much easier to execute today than five years ago. Yet, when Genesis makes all of their shows available from their last tour, you somehow see that as a problem... On top of that, you insist on release of the board tapes which would largely be made up of similar sets, yet here you are complaining that their set lists on that tour had no differences. Huh?

In any case, I'm not quite sure what all of this has to do with piracy, unless you are arguing that it's O.K. to rip off an artist if you believe that they aren't satisfying your expectations. Uh, sure, that works.

Logged

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid." - Frank Zappa